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“I’ve been thinking,” Milly said. “Her ladyship is the ranking female title biding in the shire. Now you are here to be the host if she would like to entertain. She has one of the most elegant ballrooms in all of Yorkshire, and anybody who hasn’t gone south for the Season would eagerly make the effort to attend an affair at Lynley Vale.”
“I hate balls.” Hated watching all those graceful, athletic glissades and chassés, hated sitting among the wallflowers and pretending he wasn’t more envious of the dancers than were the chaperones and spinsters.
Milly fixed him with a hard stare. “Well, that settles it. Lord Stephen Wentworth has spoken. We must outlaw the waltz and all its kin. Put them to the horn. Never let it be said that the wishes of one as selfless and wise as he were held in anything but highest regard. Let me fetch my stone tablets, for such a proclamation merits no less dignity than to be graven eternally beside the Commandments themselves.”
“You are a terror.” Stephen set his hat on his head and adjusted the angle. “Did you know that?”
“While you are a brat. That you are bright and reasonably good-looking only renders the offense more disappointing.”
“You should marry me,” Stephen said, taking up the panniers. “Take me in hand, give me what for. Spank me when I’m naughty.”
The teasing had the desired effect, making Milly smile. “My hand would tire before the punishment had any effect. I’d rather focus on her ladyship’s dilemma. Althea has done as any infantry unit knows to do when facing larger and better armed forces. She’s fallen back to regroup here in Yorkshire, but that doesn’t mean she should surrender. We have bachelors here of suitable station. Even Vicar Sorenson has a baronet or two somewhere on his family tree.”
“A duke’s sister does not marry a baronet’s less-than-wealthy great-nephew.” And yet, Milly had a point. Althea wanted what any reasonable adult wanted: a friend to go through life with, some babies to cluck and fuss over. Not too much to ask, regardless of a woman’s station—or a man’s. She wouldn’t find that fellow if all she did was sit in the garden and wait for him to trot up on his white charger.
“Althea won’t allow any balls, Milly. The idea has merit, the premises could easily accommodate such an entertainment, and I’ve no doubt the gawkers would love to come swill her punch and hop about on the dance floor, but she won’t put herself forward that way.”
“She will if you ask her to. You are the heir to a dukedom, and the succession, last I heard, rests on your broad and handsome shoulders. You are of an age to take a bride.”
The panniers were becoming heavy, though Stephen refused to put them down. His leg could not be helped, but he kept the rest of himself inordinately fit.
“I was not-bad-looking two minutes ago, and now I’m handsome?”
“Don’t try to distract me.” Milly fluffed his cravat. “You need a wife. Althea needs a husband. These conundrums are often solved by socializing with the opposite gender. Althea should hold a ball, and you should summon Walden and his duchess up here to lend their cachet to the occasion.”
“If Quinn and Jane come all this way, they can and should host the blasted ball. They are the duke and duchess and this property only came into family hands through the title.”
“An excellent idea, my lord. So glad you thought of it. Will you send Their Graces an express?”
Stephen had been maneuvered, not quite manipulated. He admired Milly’s shrewdness, even as he did not care for the view from a tight corner.
“I will discuss this with Althea, whose household this is. We thwart her wishes at our peril.”
“Oh, right. Happy spying, my lord.” Milly waggled her fingers at him and bustled back to her lair, from which she could no doubt order the affairs of the whole shire, should she choose to do so.
“I hate balls,” Stephen muttered, as a groom fixed the panniers to the saddle of a raw-boned gray gelding.
“Beg pardon, my lord?”
“Nothing of any note, apparently.” The next bit was delicate, and Stephen usually preferred to climb aboard his horse in the relative privacy of the stable yard. He hadn’t wanted to lug the panniers that far, though, so needs must.
The groom stood at the gelding’s head, gaze on nothing in particular as Stephen stashed one cane into a scabbard affixed to the saddle. The gray gelding, a stalwart soul traveling under thenom d’écurieof Revanche, knew to stand until Kingdom Come when Stephen was mounting.
“Good lad,” Stephen said, swinging aboard, sliding the second cane into the scabbard, and patting the horse. “Away with us to Rothhaven Hall.”
The groom stepped back. “You’re forRothhaven, my lord?”
The stable lads would not know where Lady Althea had got off to or why. Best keep it that way. “I am. One pays calls when biding in the country, as best I recollect.”
“One might pay calls, sir, but Rothhaven Hall never receives visitors.” The groom was an older fellow, gray-haired and lean, with the Viking-blue eyes common in the district. “Our duke is a man of particulars and likes his privacy.”
“Then I won’t be gone long, will I?” Stephen said, kneeing Revanche away from the mounting block. He kept the horse to the walk, in deference to the panniers behind the saddle, also to give himself time to think.
Stephen detested balls with the unrelenting passion the musically disinclined reserved for bad opera. Hated watching the couples flirt and twirl, hated that the long evening forced him to roost in his Bath chair like a dropsical dowager too stout to properly socialize. Hated the awkward conversations that resulted when one person remained seated and most around him stood. Hated the difficulty of maneuvering a Bath chair through a crush, particularly with a drink to hold as well.
But he loved his sister, and a ball was a logical next step in her campaign to secure the honors of social acceptance, and thereafter, wifehood.
He kicked the horse into a canter and prepared to do some spying.
