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Chapter Four
The dowager jabbed her cane in Nicholas’s direction. “You!”
Lord help him. “What is it now, Grandmother?” he asked with a beleaguered sigh.
“I spent an eternity looking for you,” she declared haughtily, lowering her cane and resting both of her hands on the handle.
Nicholas gave her a look. “Oh, did you now? If you have been looking for me for an eternity, it is a wonder you haven’t turned to dust.”
Her expression hardened. “You insolent boy!” Then she turned sharply toward Ernest who was trying his damndest to stifle a laugh.
“Why are you not in the ballroom?” she demanded.
“I needed to rest my legs,” Nicholas replied in a bored tone.
“The Hanover girl is very popular tonight, dancing with several gentlemen. You should go and dance with her.”
“Hernameis Jenny, Grandmother.Jenny!”
The dowager did not dignify his words with a response. She simply turned her attention to Ernest. “I saw you dancing with the Bexley girl. I liked it.”
Nicholas chose that moment to leave the room, feeling somewhat sorry for what he knew his cousin was about to be subjected to. If his grandmother liked seeing him with Miss Bexley, there was a high chance she would try to make a match of them. When he appeared in the ballroom doorway, his eyes moved carefully around the room. Finding her was not hard, for those red curls could not be mistaken. She was walking to the refreshment table on the arm of a gentleman he didn’t recognize.
Nicholas didn’t recognize half of the gentlemen at the ball. He wove through the crowd to reach her, arriving just as the gentleman left. She had her back to him and didn’t hear him approach. He decided to use that to his advantage after momentarily admiring the slender column of her neck.
“Beautiful evening,” he murmured, stepping beside her and picking up a glass of lemonade.
She did not bother to turn to look at him. “Splendid evening. The dowager has outdone herself.” A tiny, unamused smile touched her lips. “But then again, sheistrying to get you married.”
He’d expected her words to be harsh and surprisingly, they weren’t.
He spied an apricot topped petit four—the last of its kind—on a tray and began to reach for it to sate his sweet tooth. At that same moment, a pudgy lady plucked it from the tray and glared at him as though he had no right to the confectionery. Then she sniffed and turned on her heel. A small sigh escaped him and he looked about for something sweet.
“Here,” came her soft voice. When he looked down, he saw her proffering an apricot topped petit four. It must have been hers.
“I...thank you.” He took it, feeling uncertain and ashamed. Then he asked, “Don’t you want it?”
“It is not nice to reject a gift,” she murmured, raising her eyes—green as the forest—to look at him.
“Thank you,” he said again, bewildered at the gesture. She had been anything but pleased with him earlier.
“Besides,” she continued, “I cannot have you conversing with me and looking like a bereaved pup over a cake. People would think I did something to you.”
He smiled, realizing for the first time since his return how much he’d missed her. “You have never cared what people think about you.”
A rueful smile tugged at one side of her mouth. “You are right. I never did. But a lot has changed over the years. We are no longer the people we once were.”
He felt her last comment was directed at him. He raised his glass to his lips but paused as guilt tightened his insides. “I want to change that,” he said, surprising himself.
“I beg your pardon?” Her eyes were as wide as a doe’s.
“The years that I was away… Something tells me you no longer regard me as your friend.”
She looked away, silently confirming his suspicion. It wounded him. He cared about her but he had also failed her. Gravely.
“Will you allow me to make amends with a dance?” he asked, setting the lemonade and his uneaten petit four down. His craving for something sweet was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Very well, Your Grace.” She placed her hand in his.
