Chapter 28
“Ihave eaten nothing but lemon slices for three days,” Fiona said, “and if you do not hand me that syllabub, I will bite you.”
Nancy slid the glass across. “For a woman on the brink of her second trimester, you are ferocious.”
“It’s the only way to survive.” Fiona spooned the cream into her mouth, then, after a beat, set it down and made a face. “No, not even that. The only thing that doesn’t taste like chalk is vinegar. Or maybe arsenic.”
“Perhaps you’re craving poison,” Nancy offered, surveying the arrangement of delicacies. “If you start gnawing the silver, let me know.”
Fiona gave a little whine and pressed her wrist to her forehead, but her theatrics could not quite mask the genuine misery beneath. Nancy, who had watched Fiona glide through her last pregnancy with nothing but mild complaints about the fit of her gloves, found the drama oddly endearing.
“You are sure you won’t faint?”
“If I do, drag me into the garden and cover me with leaves. My dignity can’t stand a scene.” Fiona’s gaze cut to the far end of the ballroom, where the Duchess of Selsey had just tripped over her own train. “Unlike some people.”
Nancy snorted and reached for a stuffed oyster, savoring the brine and spice on her tongue.
She felt, despite the noise and crush of the crowd, surprisingly at ease.
It was almost as if she’d grown immune to the eyes that followed her, to the whispers in alcoves, to the knowledge that every word and movement was being weighed and scored by an invisible panel of judges.
Oscar had vanished shortly after their entrance.
He did not like crowds; he tolerated them the way a fox might tolerate a hound’s company—only if escape remained an option.
She had seen him last by the card room, standing in profile with a glass of sherry and a look that might charitably be described as “skeptical.” The memory of his expression made her smile.
She reached for a lemon tart, offering it to Fiona, who accepted with a groan of relief.
“Do you think the Duke will return before midnight?” Fiona asked, lips puckered from the lemon. “Or shall you be obliged to dance with every bachelor in the county?”
“If I am left to the mercy of bachelors, I expect you to run interference,” Nancy replied. “You and your tartlets.”
Fiona managed a grin. “Is it odd that I am so happy for you? I know the world thinks it a scandal, but I think you and Scarfield are perfect. He is so… what is the word…”
“Grumpy,” Nancy supplied.
“Formidable,” Fiona corrected, then shrugged. “Also, grumpy. But he looks at you like—” She trailed off, words failing. “Well. You must know how he looks at you.”
Nancy tried to answer, but the words caught. “He looks at everyone the same,” she said, far too quick.
Fiona opened her mouth to object, but a sudden commotion at the entry drew both their attention. Nancy turned just as a new group swept in: Lords, ladies, the occasional baronet, all of them more interested in each other than the company at hand.
A man in a black coat broke from the throng, moving with that particular brand of effortlessness that signaled either supreme confidence or total oblivion to shame.
Nancy felt the pulse of recognition before she saw his face.
“I would know that hair anywhere,” came a voice from behind her. Nancy turned to see Adrian stopping directly before her. “Not even the darkness of the grave—or the ton—could dim its radiance.”
“Your Grace,” Adrian said, taking Nancy’s hand and bowing over it with ostentatious care. “How splendid to see you tonight.”
“Indeed, my lord.”
“Beautiful, and honest.” Adrian turned to Fiona, grinned, then returned his full attention back to Nancy, as if she were the only object worth observing. “How do you find the company tonight?”
Nancy arched a brow. “So far, it is lively. Though I sense it is about to become unpredictable.”
He looked wounded. “Do you imagine I court disaster? I am the very model of decorum.”
“Your reputation disagrees,” Nancy said, but she smiled despite herself.
He leaned in, lowering his voice. “I see Scarfield has left you to fend for yourself. Would you do me the honor of a dance?”
It was not a real question; they both knew she could not refuse without drawing a scene. “Lead on,” Nancy said, surrendering her hand.
He smiled, then guided her into the river of guests flowing toward the floor.
The cotillion was underway. Adrian took his place opposite Nancy, smiling with wolfish delight. Around them, other couples fell into line, the music swelling into the patterns and turns of the dance.
Nancy felt the press of eyes, the subtle nudge of speculation. Let them look, she thought. Let them all wonder.
They swept through the first set, the formal movements giving Adrian too little chance for conversation. But at the first opportunity—when hands touched and the lines crisscrossed—he said, “You are the talk of the ball, you know. More so than the Prince himself.”
“Is that a compliment, or a warning?”
He spun her to the right. “Always a compliment. I saw you as soon as you entered, but dared not approach until I was sure the Duke would not impale me with a candelabrum.”
Nancy smirked. “He is formidable, as you say.”
“I admire him,” Adrian replied, his eyes never leaving hers. “But I also pity him. It cannot be easy, having a wife so much admired.”
She met him at the center, exchanged hands. “You flatter me.”
“It is no flattery. I was with him only moments ago, in the card room. He would not admit it, but I think he was watching for you the entire time.”
Nancy’s steps faltered. “Did he say so?”
Adrian shook his head, then dipped her, quick and precise. “No, but he does not have to. His face tells all.”
She tried to laugh, but it came out brittle. “Oscar has many faces. Most of them are unsmiling.”
“Perhaps. But his eyes were set on you.” Adrian’s tone was odd, just on the line between playful and something else.
They parted, rejoined, hands glancing. Adrian leaned close again. “You are happy, Nancy?” He said it so low she almost missed it.
“What manner of question is that?” She attempted to keep her voice light. “Of course I am happy.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly. “You are not a woman who can be hidden, Nancy. I worry he knows this, and resents it.”
The music shifted, the couples turning in a spiral that brought Nancy and Adrian together again.
She tried to shift the topic. “Why should he resent it? I am the easiest part of his life.”
Adrian’s laugh was soft. “No one has ever called you easy, Nancy. But that is why I admire you.” He held her hand a beat longer than necessary. “If I could—well. It is not for me to say. But you deserve better than to be left on the edges of things.”
She could not answer, so she fixed her gaze on the floor, counting steps. When she looked up, her eyes went straight across the ballroom and collided with Oscar’s.
He was not smiling.
In fact, he looked as if he might murder the next man who so much as breathed in her direction.
Adrian’s hand tightened. “He is jealous, you know.”
“He has no cause to be jealous,” Nancy replied. “I belong to him, in every sense that matters.”
Adrian’s gaze darkened, and for a moment, she wondered if he might say something reckless. Instead, he led her through the final set with a showy grace, as if determined to prove a point.
At the end of the dance, Adrian bowed, then straightened, eyes flicking to a spot just over her shoulder. “You had better go to him,” he said, softer than before. “Before the room is engulfed in flames.”
Nancy turned, and found Oscar striding through the crowd, his every movement radiating fury so contained it was almost a work of art.
She tried to steady herself. She tried to remember that she was the one with the advantage, that he could not touch her, not really.
But he came to her side, took her hand—harder than necessary—and without a word, led her away from the floor. Adrian watched them go with an expression that was unreadable.
Oscar pulled her into a side hallway, where the noise dropped to a murmur. “Is this your idea of merriment?” he demanded, voice so flat it could have cut glass.
“My idea of fun?” She pulled her hand free, though the mark of his grip lingered. “You left me alone in a ballroom full of sharks. What did you expect me to do?”
“Not dance with Eastmere.”
She laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Would you rather I have stood against the wall and wilted? You know me better than that.”
Oscar’s mouth was a hard line. “He is not to be trusted.”
“Neither am I,” she shot back. “That is why you married me, isn’t it?”
He fell silent. Then, suddenly, he took her arm and steered her back toward the main hall. “We are waltzing.”
She dug her heels in. “Oscar—”
But he was already pulling her onto the floor, where the first notes of the waltz had begun to swell.
He did not ask. He simply took her in his arms, holding her closer than was strictly proper, and began to move.
The air between them crackled. Nancy tried to match his steps, but he danced with a force she had never seen before, as if daring her to keep up or be left behind.
He did not look at her. He kept his eyes fixed somewhere just over her shoulder.
They spun, circled, whirled through the crowd, and Nancy could feel the eyes following them, the whispers mounting.
When he finally spoke, it was so quiet she almost missed it. “You are too easy with him.”
“With whom?”
“With Eastmere. With everyone.” His grip tightened at her waist. “You let them think they have a chance.”
She tried to pull away, but he only drew her closer. “That is not true.”
“It is,” he said. “You are magnetic, and you do not know how to stop.”
“I thought you liked that about me.”
“I do,” he admitted, “except when I don’t.”
She shook her head, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. “You are impossible.”
He spun her, then caught her, his hand splayed across her back. “And you are infuriating.”
The music slowed, then softened, and they came to a stop at the edge of the floor.
Nancy did not let go.
For a moment, she thought he might kiss her. The thought was so impossible that her heart nearly tripped.
But he did not. He only stared at her, blue eyes as hard and cold as winter, and then he stepped away.
“Thank you for the dance, Duchess,” he said, voice so formal it was almost cruel.
She stared after him, stunned.
For a full minute, she could not move. The room blurred. The conversations, the laughter, the sparkle of the chandelier—none of it made sense. She had spent the whole evening waiting for him to see her.
And when he did, he looked right through her.
He does not want you. Not truly.
He is simply playing at marriage, and you are the only one who ever thought it could be more.