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I would hardly have called any of that flirting, but a surge of victory rushed through my chest anyway. Thea had been watching me all night, as well.
I straightened to put some space between us. Her scent—a mixture of citrus and something floral—was clouding my thoughts. “I believe some people call it entertaining your dance partner.”
“I believe most would call it giving a woman false ideas of how you feel about her.”
I shook my head. It was not the same. “The majority of the women I danced with tonight have known me for years and are under no illusions about my intentions. It is perfectly well known that I am a confirmed bachelor.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “That does not stop each of those women from hoping they are special and different. That it will be them who will capture your heart and take you off the marriage mart completely.”
I scoffed.
Thea continued. “Besides, there is no rule that knowing a man for many years means you cannot later fall in love with him.”
My heart skipped, my chest going warm, and I looked at her sharply to find her attention on the people milling about with deceptive calmness. Was her heart racing as much as mine? Could she possibly be implying what I thought—
“Miss Northcott,” Alfred Upshaw said, approaching us with a smile. “I hoped to ask you for the next set.”
The son of our vicar—the one man she specifically requested not to dance with. I could not very well throw her into his arms now, could I? It was a poor excuse for what I was about to do, but I could not deny that, at this particular moment, I wanted nothing more than to hold her in my arms and learn for myself whether the feelings running through my veins and heating my skin were mutually reciprocated, or if I was perilously close to joining a long line of unrequited suitors for Dorothea Northcott.
“I am afraid she has already promised this set to me,” I said smoothly, hoping Thea would not give me away for the cheat that I was.
Thea looked up at me sharply, a question in her eyes that I imagined was much deeper than wondering what I meant by my actions now. I offered her my elbow, and before Upshaw could beg for the following set, she took my arm and pulled me toward the dance floor.
We took our places, and she looked at me with a plain expression. “I only agreed to go along with your ruse because of our truce.”
“Of course. Only for the truce.”
The music began, lilting violin strings filling the otherwise quiet air. Where had all the conversation and bustle of chatter disappeared to? It was loud only moments before. Now I only seemed to notice Thea, and it appeared that I only could hear the music of our dance. All else was gone.
“Well,” I continued, desperate for her to talk to me. The silence weighed upon us and it felt significant. I needed to fill it. “Notonlyfor the truce. Also to save you from a fate you seemed to want to avoid.”
Her gaze flicked behind me, where I could only assume Alfred Upshaw now stood. “Yes. That was kind of you to extricate me so smoothly. Thank you.”
“Is there a reason you do not wish to dance with him?” I kept my voice low as we moved through the motions of our dance.
Thea’s nose wrinkled. “Last I spoke to him, he believed himself in love with me and expressed it passionately.”
That was unexpected. I’d rather assumed she was avoiding awful breath or a known toe-cruncher. “Then I am happy to save you from the fawning attentions of a man in love.” Or perhaps, in truth, it was Alfred Upshaw and his ill-fated hopes I was saving from further pain.
She shook her head. “He is not a man in love. His declaration came after only a few short weeks of knowing one another. I could never trust him to know his own mind, and certainly not for someone like him to remain in a state he believed to be love forever.”
My chest tightened. “All the more reason, I suppose, to protect you from one another.”
She relaxed a little. “It is nice to have a bit of a break.”
“From your many admirers?”
Thea did not respond to this, and I didn’t blame her. Why was I pushing her so hard? Why could I not leave well enough alone? I closed my mouth and submitted myself to the pleasure of dancing with a woman who was graceful and knew the steps well. The din in the room had faded to nothing, and with the music pressing on us and the constant motion of the dance, I felt an odd tightness in my chest that only seemed to heighten as the dance continued.
Thea did not speak again until the dance ended and we lined up together for a country dance. “Was Henry ill?” she asked. “I was surprised when he did not accompany us this evening.”
I didn’t pretend to mishear her, though I wanted to. He was not ill in a physical sense, but his heart had suffered a blow earlier that year, and while I was fairly certain he did not know that I knew of it, I was just as convinced that he was determined to pretend it had never happened. He had developed atendrefor Felicity before she ever met James, and losing her to his brother could not have been easy. He would, of course, never speak a word of it aloud, but I had seen the way he had pulled away when she first came to Chelton while simultaneously acting as though nothing was amiss, and I could see now how deeply he attempted to pretend he had never had feelings for her at all.
It was, of course, necessary. He was the best of men, and I was certain he did not desire Felicity any longer—not beyond appreciating her as a sister-in-law. “Henry does not enjoy balls or parties.” There. It was the truth and did not force more information from me than I could reasonably give her.
She frowned. “Pity, that. He would have been fun to tease into a dance.”
“He is a decent dancer when he can be persuaded into it.”
