Chapter Twenty Two
As Grace swirled across the floor in the arms of yet another man, Henry tried to calculate in his head the odds that she might’ve saved him a dance.
Minuscule. Probably somewhat less likely than the possibility of snow falling in Hell.
She hadn’t glanced at him even once all evening, though he would have laid decent money on her knowing he was present and choosing to ignore him.
Instead she had danced often, smiling, laughing…
flirting. Little flutters of those absurdly-long lashes.
Bashful glances. She’d even blushed a time or two.
Jealousy was a miserly fist clenched about his heart. He begrudged those gentlemen with whom she had elected to dance every damned moment with her. Every smile, every airy laugh—even the clasp of her small, gloved hand.
In the blinding ivory of her gown, she looked like a star that had descended from the heavens to grace this lowly human gathering with her very presence. Diamonds sparkled at her throat, her ears—even in her damned hair. Precious and sparkling, dazzling every eye with her glittering facade.
She had always dazzled him, even without the diamonds.
Henry sipped his champagne, flexing the fingers of his free hand at his side as he allowed himself to imagine, just for a moment, stalking through the thick of the crowd, and tearing out the throat of the man who had dared to request a dance of her with his bare hands.
Somehow Grace had brought him to this—this atavistic and primal rage of a spurned mate. It simmered in his chest, clawed at his heart.
And Grace didn’t care. Or if she did, she was giving the performance of a lifetime.
Shining like a star, glowing with merriment, with a sort of incandescent, untroubled delight.
If those present had noted the fact that they were not in each other’s company as they had been so much just lately, then it had also been noticed that only Grace was not particularly aggrieved by this.
She smiled. She laughed. She sparkled.
And Henry stewed. Seethed. Fumed.
The one time he had attempted to approach her, she had been nestled in the bosom of her family, and they had effectively swarmed around her, creating a human shield of sorts three bodies deep.
Grace hadn’t even noticed his approach; she had been deep in conversation with one of those cousins of hers—Danny.
But her sister, the duchess, had noticed.
She had slid smoothly through that crowd until she had reached him, the scarlet silk of her gown trailing upon the floor like a train of flame.
Though her hands had been clasped sweetly before her, there had been no mistaking the set of her shoulders for anything but an iron resolve.
“No,” she had said, in a light, sing-song sort of voice. Only that. But the fire that had burned behind those dark eyes had sent a shiver up his spine. The tautness of her jaw behind that syrupy, painted smile had been warning enough.
To argue would have been to incite gossip, to abandon his genteel manners, and perhaps to cause a scene that might well embarrass Grace.
These last few days had brought with them the revelation that he simply did not care how his own reputation might suffer—but he would not sacrifice Grace’s so publicly.
And as he had turned to leave them, he’d felt the familiar sting of a dried pea striking the back of his head.
A bit of petty retribution he couldn’t even find it within himself to begrudge whichever of them had decided to make such judicious use of one of the children’s peashooter.
All he could do was seethe and burn and pine.
For a woman who, to all appearances, didn’t want him. Not any longer, at least.
“How humiliating it must be for you, nephew, to be thrown over by a woman like that.”
The fine hairs at the nape of Henry’s neck prickled as Uncle Nigel appeared at his side, wearing the sort of sickly-sweet smile that revealed a private, personal amusement. “Uncle,” he said tightly. “I was unaware you were present this evening.”
“How could you have been?” Uncle Nigel asked smoothly. “You’ve hardly glanced away from the Seymour girl all evening. She does clean up rather well, I’ll admit. For a woman of such base origins.”
Henry’s fist ached to hit something. To shove those words back into his uncle’s mouth and cram them down his throat with a severity that would make him reconsider uttering a single unflattering word of Grace ever again.
That rage simmered too close to the surface, threatened to erupt. He rasped, “Where is Aunt Alicia?”
“Had the headache,” Uncle Nigel said. “Rather a lot of them, lately. But she doesn’t much fit in at these sorts of functions, besides.”
“Perhaps she would,” Henry said, “if you had given half so much a care for her wardrobe as you have for your own. If you had ever treated her with the respect you ought to have done, and demanded the same from others. She was due that, as your wife.”
Uncle Nigel offered a single, blasé shrug.
“Alicia was always a means to an end,” he said.
“If she nurtured fantasies of love eternal, that was her mistake.” He passed a hand down the front of his coat, his head bowing momentarily to admire the polished brass buttons, the elegant gold embroidery.
“How fares your mother?” he asked. “The last time I paid a call, I was refused at the door. I found it rather unforgivably rude. We are family, after all.”
“Are we? Tell me what sort of person extorts money from his own family, then.”
That had done it. Uncle Nigel’s eyes flashed with hate, and a sneer curled at his lip. “The sort that wants what he is due,” he hissed. “What he has always been due. Your mother—”
“My mother is a damned saint, and you’re not fit to kiss her feet,” Henry said.
“Your mother is a whore, and you—you’re nothing but her worthless little bastard.” Uncle Nigel bared his teeth in a cruel smile. “Your days as earl are numbered, nephew. Best you resign yourself to it.”
The truth of it was, he already had. He had resigned himself to it days ago, back at that grubby little tavern in Whitechapel. The game was over, and he had lost.
And it didn’t compare, even fractionally, to losing Grace. He had spent so much of his time and his energy chasing something which was doomed to be lost to him, and in the process he had surrendered something truly precious. Someone truly precious.
“You must have thought yourself quite clever,” Uncle Nigel said. “I don’t know how you burgled my study, but she must have helped you.” He tipped his head to indicate Grace, still swirling about the dance floor in the arms of another, blithely unaware that she was the subject of such speculation.
If Uncle Nigel had been expecting an admission of guilt, he was to be disappointed. Henry would not have betrayed Grace’s involvement for anything.
“And yet, it has availed you nothing,” Uncle Nigel said, in simpering tones of satisfaction.
“What, did you have a falling out? Have you lost the girl and your earldom as well? Pity.” He made a sound of pretended sympathy deep in his throat.
“Probably she’ll snag a title anyway, with that dowry.
There’s more than one peer with pockets to let; one of them will snap her up before long. ”
Goddamn it all, he didn’t want to hear this. Of course someone else would snap her up. But he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to consider the possibility that he might lose her forever.
“I heard Latimer had been considering making another play for her,” Uncle Nigel said idly. “He’s danced with her once this evening already. A marquess ought to be well beyond her reach, as common as she is, but they were nearly engaged once before.”
Latimer. That rage that had simmered beneath his skin all evening bubbled over at last. Not for Uncle Nigel, who had stolen what ought to have been his birthright. Not because he had lost any hope of reclaiming it. Not even because Uncle Nigel had decided to taunt him with it.
But because his gaze had landed upon Latimer, there on the opposite side of the room, and the wretched son of a bitch was watching Grace with a sort of avarice that offended Henry to the pit of his miserable fucking soul.
He heard, distantly, Uncle Nigel’s satisfied snicker as he set off across the ballroom, heard the startled sounds made by those he shoved past to reach the other side. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this.
Latimer hadn’t noticed him yet. “Might ask for a second dance,” Latimer confided to the gentleman beside him as he watched Grace float across the floor. “Last I saw, Miss Seymour’s card wasn’t yet entirely full.”
“A second dance. You intend to marry the chit, then?” his companion mused.
Latimer gave a shrug. “I would have before, if she hadn’t taken such offense to a simple suggestion. And a man’s got to be married at some point, besides.”
That simple suggestion being that Grace ought to alter herself to suit Latimer’s taste. That she was something less than perfect, exactly as she was. Henry’s hands clenched into fists as his fury ratcheted higher still.
“Think she’ll have you this time?”
Latimer shrugged. “At Miss Seymour’s age, she can’t afford to be quite so choosy. She is getting a bit long in the tooth, no? And her origins being what they are, she’s hardly likely to do better.”
“She is well-connected, at least.”
“That and the dowry will soften the blow of the rest, naturally,” Latimer said, with a smug grin.
Which Henry promptly punched right off of his arrogant face.
∞∞∞
A shrill scream broke over the last warbling note of the violin as the set concluded, and Grace’s fingers clenched instinctively upon those of her dance partner, who valiantly suppressed a wince.
A disturbance of some sort had broken out at the side of the ballroom floor, a swarm of bodies moving in odd patterns around it—those who struggled to get away wrestling against those who strove for a closer look.