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A pang of jealousy stabbed through her chest at that realization. They knew. They knew exactly who they were. Where they belonged.
The Duchess of Dellon glanced over Torrie’s shoulder and her green eyes lit up, a genuine smile spreading across her face. “Oh, Lord Glenford, I heard you had arrived—thank you for finally deciding to grace us with your presence.” The teasing lilt of the duchess’s voice made Torrie smile.
She looked over her shoulder. Roe stood behind her.
Roe in a dark, impeccably tailored tailcoat and trousers, a crisp white cravat tied properly, but with a tilt of the knot that made it look roguish against his tanned skin. Freshly shaven, she had to look twice at the line about his jaw. She’d never seen him without a dark shadow of stubble and the absence of it made him look younger, somehow, as if she could peek into the past and see the boy he once was. His dark hair was still unfashionably long, but slicked back. Pomade, she guessed, though his hair didn’t look pasted to his head like the heads of so many men.
A renegade lock of his hair fell alongside his forehead, curving perfectly to touch the tip of his cheekbone. No pomade.
Striking. The whole of him striking.
And by the number of faces turned his way—women salivating, men shifting uncomfortably with their fingers rubbing under their own cravats—she wasn’t the only one that thought so.
Roe stepped alongside her and set his look on the duchess. “Don’t look at me like that, your grace, or your husband will bury a blade in my belly when I’m forced to set my paws on you and drag you out to the dance floor.”
“Agreed. I will keep my eyes in my head.” The duchess laughed. “Plus, let us not poke the lion. He’s in a mood tonight.”
“Why?”
“He just lost a ship in the Caribbean waters to pirates. You need to get back out on the sea, Lord Glenford, if only to keep my husband’s ships afloat and his mood even.”
Roe inclined his head to the duchess. “I will take your request under serious consideration.”
At that moment, Torrie realized what the oddity was of how Roe had stepped into the circle of women. She hadn’t noticed it at first, she’d been so struck by him in proper clothes.
He was Lord Glenford.
The duchess was addressing him as such, and no one was correcting her.
Torrie had never even heard of a Lord Glenford before—what bedlam ballroom had she found herself in?
Roe turned to Torrie, an innocent smile on his face. “May I steal you away for a dance, Lady Apton?”
Her bewildered gaze centered on him. “You dance?”
His shoulders lifted. “I manage to move my feet in prescribed patterns on the floor, but don’t expect me to be in rhythm.”
She chuckled. “I’ve never heard such a dreadful invitation to the dance floor.”
He held his hand out to her. “You’ve never been at a ball with me.”
She paused, holding her hand by her side. Her look flickered down to her skirts. Whereas she’d once loved the ballroom floor, she’d only danced once since the fire. It had been with her husband, and at that, she’d had difficulty twisting her legs as necessary to hit all the steps. After that one time he’d never asked her to dance again “I don’t think—”
“You don’t think you can be seen with a hopelessly inept partner? I understand.”
Yet he kept his palm extended up to her.
A hesitant grin on her face, she relented. With a slight nod, she set her white-gloved fingers in his hand.
A few steps and they were at the edge of the dance floor. He turned fully to her, clamping his right hand about her waist as he took her right hand into his. His head bobbed in time to the music for several seconds, and then he set forth.
Dreadfully out of step to the music.
But she didn’t care. She had more important matters to pin him on. “You’re Lord Glenford? That was what the duchess called you—Lord Glenford.”
His mouth quirked, but the frown—or the smile—he hid didn’t manifest. “I’m Roe.”
“No, you’re Lord Glenford. When did that happen? And how did I not know about it?”
