Chapter 2
A footman stepped quietly to Adam’s side and inclined his head toward the whiskey glass in his hand. “May I refill it, Your Grace?”
“No.”
The man withdrew at once.
Adam kept the same half-finished drink and remained in the same spot as he had been almost all evening. He stood near the terrace doors, where the heat in the room thinned by a degree, though not by enough to make it tolerable.
The ambient music moved through the ballroom gently while laughter rose too often and too easily. Everywhere he looked, people turned to him, alert and attempting to look rather peculiar. It was as if every person present meant for him to enjoy himself publicly, whether he felt like it or not.
Adam had no such intention.
He had already done what duty required. He had appeared and spent a minute with the Dowager Duchess. He had also endured introductions and stood still while strangers measured his face, his manners, his years away, and what sort of duke war might have made of him.
The room seemed to almost ask him to be easy-looking and be willing to be spoken to, but he couldn’t care less for any of this. So he kept to the edge and watched.
The Salbury household ran well. He could see clearly that the machinery of the evening had been arranged with intelligence and wealth enough to make the whole thing look effortless.
The guests were another matter. Men and women were admired, maneuvered, and assessed beneath the soft cover of civility. Every exchange seemed to conceal some calculation.
His eyes were still sweeping through the room when a burst of low male amusement to his right caught his attention. He had not meant to listen, but the speaker made that impossible.
“I tell you, I could catch her attention in half an hour if I cared to try.”
Another man murmured something too low to catch.
The first laughed. “She would hardly be difficult. A woman with that sort of figure ought to be grateful for any notice at all.”
Adam turned his head.
The speaker was young, well-dressed, and smug enough to make his face immediately punchable. His companions did not rebuke him. One smirked. Another lifted a shoulder.
Their ease disgusted Adam almost as much as the words themselves.
He followed the man’s gaze and found the woman being discussed.
She stood some yards away among a small shifting cluster of guests, dark-haired and dressed in pale blue. Her figure filled her dress, and Adam saw at once that the defect lay with fashion, not with her.
Warmth clung to her face even while she smiled through what looked, to his eyes, like effort. She was laughing at something said by one of her companions, but her laughter did not quite hide her boredom.
Lady Emily Bolt , one of the men muttered under his breath, and then came another low remark that Adam did not need in full to understand.
His hand tightened around the glass.
What revolted him was not only the speaker but also the room’s willingness to absorb such ugliness without protest.
He turned partly away before his temper could choose the next moment for him. He had no wish to begin the evening by breaking a guest’s nose in the Salburys’ ballroom, however deserved it might be.
It took twenty minutes of subtly walking around the ballroom for him to calm down. He eventually managed to find a spot by another window, this one free of inflammatory remarks. He took a sip of his whiskey and kept his other hand in his pocket.
He was about to take another sip when he became aware of movement behind him.
He caught the soft shift of silk, the nearness of another body, and then the faint whoosh of something falling.
He reached out before it struck the floor, only to find a fan in his hand.
He turned around, a polite look already resting on his face.
Lady Emily Bolt stood before him.
For one second, he only looked.
It was unquestionably the same woman. The same dark hair, the same full figure that had approached him earlier. He could see the swell of her hips as they filled her dress, and for a brief second, his mind went to the most unpleasant of places.
Get it together, Adam!
Up close, she looked different. She looked warmer and more vivid. He saw at once that she had approached him on purpose, and that neither of them believed the fallen fan had been an accident.
She held out her hand. “Thank you.”
Her voice was steady enough, but he caught the nerves beneath it. Then, her fingers brushed his as she took the fan.
It was the smallest contact imaginable, but for some reason, it fully triggered his sense of being and awareness. He let his gaze rise to her face and felt something inside him pull tight. She was not delicate in the frail, decorative way the other women usually were.
Thank God .
Her mouth was soft and expressive, her eyes blue and direct despite the flicker of uncertainty she could not quite hide. There was life in her. Actual life.
She cleared her throat and spoke, with a touch of awkwardness that only made her feel more real. “It is quite a lovely evening, is it not?”
Adam felt his grip tighten around his glass. He wanted to say, If you like endless conversations and buzzing around your ears all night long, but he decided at this point to just settle for a simple “I suppose.”
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing on him. “Something tells me you are not enjoying yourself, Your Grace.”
Adam knew at once that he ought to answer gently.
“Not really,” he said.
The words landed colder than he had intended. He saw it at once. The small shift in her expression. Confusion first, then disappointment that she tried to smooth away before it could become visible to anyone but him.
He had wounded her, slightly but distinctly, and he knew it.
Instead of correcting himself like a civilized man, he bowed his head once and stepped away before the moment could demand more of him.
Retreat came easily to his body. It did not come easily to the rest of him. Even after putting distance between them, he still felt the brush of her fingers and saw the quick hurt he had left on her face.
They weren’t enough to make him pause, though.
Eventually, he assumed nearly the same position he had before—one shoulder angled toward the wall, whiskey glass still in hand, the terrace doors a few paces away. Nothing in the ballroom had changed. The music remained bright, and the conversation around him continued just as before.
However, the pressure he once felt no longer sat on him in quite the same way, because part of his attention had detached itself and gone elsewhere.
To her .
Could he turn around and find her in the crowd again? Could she be somewhere in a corner, also looking as bored as he was?
The answer came to him the moment he decided to look around the room.
Lady Emily had returned to her companions, but not with the ease she had worn before approaching him. She smiled. She even laughed at something one of the other ladies said.
From this distance, another man might have taken the performance as a sign of success. Adam did not. He had seen the confusion he caused. He could still picture the brief fall in her expression after his stupidly abrupt answer.
He ought to have let the matter go. None of what had happened required further thought. Yet his gaze kept returning to her of its own accord.
He noticed when she shifted her weight, when she turned her head, when she plastered a smile on her face for a second too late that it looked completely unnatural. He hated that he noticed these things, and he hated even more that he could not seem to stop.
Then, the man from the absurd conversation he had heard earlier approached her.
Adam recognized him at once. The man was in the same well-cut coat and wearing the same face Adam had wanted to strike just twenty minutes earlier.
Disgust settled low in his throat.
From across the room, the gentleman looked perfectly acceptable. He bowed properly. He spoke with smooth assurance. No one watching without prior knowledge would have found anything wanting in his conduct.
Adam knew too well what sat beneath it.
Lady Emily, on the other hand, did not.
Adam watched her hesitate only briefly before answering him. There was caution in her, but not enough. She spoke, and the gentleman leaned nearer.
At first glance, it looked like any ordinary exchange at any ordinary ball.
Adam tried to convince himself, with a certain severity, that he was watching only because the man had already revealed himself foul. Any decent person who had heard that conversation would keep an eye on the matter.
The lie would have satisfied him better if he had not still been so conscious of her mouth tightening after leaving him. Now, she seemed determined to prove the moment had not mattered at all. Perhaps to him, it ought not to have. To her, it had plainly mattered enough to sting.
The gentleman said something else. She gave a small answer. Then, after one quick glance around the room, he drifted toward the terrace doors, a smile on his face.
Adam could break the glass in his hand at this point because a moment later, Lady Emily followed.
He exhaled. Then, he set his glass down on a passing tray without looking at the footman who received it. His decision had already formed before he bothered to dress it in reason.
Any man who had heard what he had would do the same and ought not be left to that sort of company without warning.
The gentleman had shown his character plainly enough.
Adam would be contemptible if he stood by and let Lady Emily walk without warning into whatever insult or ugliness awaited her beyond the ballroom.
So, he crossed through the large crowd and headed for the terrace doors before either of them could vanish beyond his sight.
This was an act of service.
Nothing more.