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What to say, what to say…did not the burden of chitchat fall upon the lady? If only she had social graces! If only she’d had a governess or a companion…or her mother. Her breath hitched with sadness, and the hand at her back gave her a comforting pat. What in the world was happening?
“Quite the crush, sir, I am sure you will agree.” There: benign, with a touch of frost. Impersonal. A comment any of the other ladies in the room might deliver.
“Your Grace,” he said, executing another flawless maneuver around the next corner.
She snorted and consigned to oblivion any chance of being confused with a lady. “I am not a duchess.”
“But I am a duke.”
Bloody hell!“Of?” There: even chillier, and disdainful. As if he were a duke of no account at all. She didn’t know what she was doing or why she was doing it, but there was nothing to be done but to brazen it out.
“I am Lowell.”
“I am unfamiliar with the name.” Which wasn’t a lie.
“Haven’t memorized yourDebretts, then?” He sounded pleased.
“I am shocked that I am unfamiliar with the name of a duke of the realm.” As if it were his fault.
“I do not go about indiscriminately in society,” he replied.
“I am not indiscriminate in my going about, but the notion that one of the highest in the land would be unknown to even one of the lowest would be ridiculous on any account.”Whathad she just said?
The hand that had caressed her upper back now laid itself on her side and slid up a fraction, and back down. “If I may make myself known to you, I am Alfred Blakesley, Seventh Duke of Lowell, of Lowell Hall, Tandridge, Surrey.”
“Tandridge? Surrey?” This could not be… “My family home is in Kent, near to the village of Edenbridge, which marches along the border of Tandridge.”
“Of course it does.” The hand caressed her side again. “And all my efforts these past five years were an exercise in futility.” He swung her around a corner of the dance floor. No explanation followed.
“I do not know of what you speak.”
“You will, ere long,” he murmured, nostrils flaring once more.
“Sir! Your Grace. I must object to this repeated inhalation of my person.”
And then he smiled—oh, not the kind of smile that a jolly person might assay, full of teeth and creased eyes, but the merest, slightest quirk of the lips. Had she examined his lips? It seemed outrageous and unfair that a man would have a mouth like that, full and plush and yet chiseled and manly. The smile teased out crinkles at the corners of those breathtaking eyes, which made Felicity misstep and fall against his chest—had she examined hischestin detail? She couldn’t bear to, it was all too much: the glorious handsomeness, the effortless dance… She swayed, and he bolstered her, without exertion, and the first part of the set came to an end.
All at once, she became aware of her surroundings, of the susurrations of gowns and the murmur of voices around the room as innuendo was sown hither and yon. Self-consciousness descended upon her like a heavy cloak, and she wanted nothing more than to flee. How dare he do this to her, make a show of her in front of what she was coming to believe were not the cream of society but the dross? The only thing worse than being made a spectacle of by another was to make one of herself, and so she remained, even as the duke’s hands tightened on her person, as if he sensed her impulse to abandon him. The next set began; he swept her around again, and Felicity refused to be powerless.
“Quite the stir you’ve created,” she said.
“Have I? Created a stir? A stir, of all things.” His mellifluous voice betrayed mirth.
“Oh, yes, well, may you be amused, Your Grace,” she replied. “As you do not go about, you may not know I number among the most legendary of Antidotes that thehaute tonhas ever seen.”
“I have often thought little of the opinions of society,” he said. “I find no reason to revise that impression, under these circumstances.”
“Which are?”
“Dancing with you. Holding you in my arms. Feeling your heart beat”—he drew her closer, and a wave of whispers threatened to capsize her composure—“as we move through the waltz.”
She, who had taught herself to waltz based on illustrations inLa Belle Assemblée, who had never expected to make use of that knowledge, was floating around the ballroom as though she had enjoyed instruction from thecrème de la crèmeof French dancing masters. Lost to the music, to the feel of his hands holding her rather closer than was permissible, she took a turn in breathing in his scent, and her old visions of ballroom triumph reawakened—until she looked about her, just for a moment, and saw the spiteful smiles and the fans concealing mouths that dripped venomouson-dits.
“I suppose it’s an interesting strategy.” She pretended to muse, looking away from the crowd and focusing on his perfect cravat, a vision of enviable elegance.
“Strategy?” He brought her even closer to That Chest.
“You have done your duty standing up with a wallflower, have made a beneficent showing, and can therefore take yourself off without falling into the grasp of the fortune-hunting mamas or the wily widows. After all, no one would believe”—she made herself laugh—“that you have an interest in me. I am Miss Felicity Templeton, if I may make myself known to you. An honorable, of which you would not have been aware unless I told you. Which I have. Had you any curiosity as to who I was?”
