Chapter 19
“Blackholm, stop fidgeting. You look like a man awaiting sentencing.”
Quentin leaned against the pillar at the top of the Atherton ballroom stairs, a glass of champagne already in his hand, his evening coat immaculate, his grin insufferable.
The ballroom below glittered with candlelight, crystal, and three hundred members of the ton arranged in clusters of silk and judgment.
“I do not fidget,” Evander said.
“You have adjusted your cravat four times since we arrived. I counted.”
“The knot is uneven.”
“The knot is perfect. You are nervous.” Quentin sipped his champagne. “I find this delightful. Genuinely. The Duke of Blackholm, nervous about a ball. I should write it down for posterity.”
“Write it down and I will end our friendship.”
“You have ended our friendship eleven times. I remain undeterred.”
Evander turned from the ballroom to the entrance, where guests were still arriving, announced by the Athertons’ butler in a voice that carried like cannon fire.
Lord and Lady Penlock. Lord Charles and Lady Whitfield.
Names he recognized, faces he could navigate.
The ton was a machine, and Evander understood machines.
What he did not understand was why his pulse had not settled since Harding announced that the Duchess was ready and waiting in the entrance hall.
He had not seen her; he had dressed in his own chambers and come downstairs to find Godfrey waiting with the carriage, and Godfrey had informed him that Her Grace would follow in the second carriage with Hattie.
Evander had agreed because it was practical, and because some part of him knew that seeing Mary before the ball would undo the composure he needed to survive it.
The butler’s voice boomed from the top of the stairs. “The Duke and Duchess of Blackholm.”
Evander turned.
Mary stood at the entrance to the ballroom in the sapphire silk, and the room tilted.
“Extraordinary,” Evander whispered.
The gown fit her as though Madame Laurent had stitched it to her skin. The bodice sat close and square across her collarbones, exactly as the modiste had promised, and the skirt fell in a sweep of deep blue that caught the candlelight and held it.
Her hair was pinned in an arrangement Hattie must have spent an hour perfecting, with a few strands left loose at her temples, and the pearls at her throat were simple and right, and she was beautiful.
She had always been beautiful.
Evander had known this from the moment she barged into his parlor in a ruined wedding dress.
But knowing and seeing were different things, and seeing Mary in sapphire silk, standing at the top of the Atherton ballroom stairs with her chin lifted and her shoulders bare, was a blow he had not prepared for.
He crossed to her. Offered his arm. Kept his face still.
“You look well,” he said.
Quentin, passing behind them with his champagne, muttered, “Extraordinary was the word you used, I believe.”
Evander ignored him. Mary took his arm, her cheeks a tint redder now, and they descended the stairs together.
“Your Grace. A pleasure.”
Lord Langham appeared at Mary’s side within minutes, his face flushed with the anxiety of a man who had been dreading this evening for a week. He bowed to Evander with mechanical precision and turned to his daughter.
“You look lovely, my dear. Lovely.” He patted her hand. “The gown is excellent. Very appropriate.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
“And the child? He is well?”
“Tommy is well. Mrs. Bridwell is with him.”
Lord Langham nodded several times too many, his gaze darting around the ballroom as though cataloging who was watching. “Good. Good. We should speak with the Heathcotes before supper. Lady Heathcote has been sympathetic. And the Penlocks—”
“We will manage the evening, Langham.” Evander kept his voice low and even. “Go and enjoy yourself.”
Lord Langham bowed again and retreated into the crowd with visible relief. Mary watched him go.
“He means well,” she said.
“He means to survive. There is a difference.”
Mary’s mouth twitched, and Evander felt the minor victory of making her smile in a room designed to make her anxious.
Her friend Isabella materialized from the crowd in a gown of pale gold, her dark eyes sweeping Mary from hem to hairline with appraising thoroughness.
“The sapphire,” Isabella said. “I knew it.”
“You did not know. I only told you yesterday.”
“I knew the moment you said he chose the fabric.” Isabella squeezed Mary’s hands and dropped her voice. “You look magnificent. Every woman in this room is staring, and their husbands are pretending not to.”
Evander stepped back to give them a moment, and Quentin appeared at his elbow with a fresh glass.
“You are staring,” Quentin observed.
“I am surveying the room.”
“You are surveying your wife. There is a significant difference, and I am enjoying both.”
A cluster of guests parted, and a couple approached. The Duke of Carden stepped forward with his wife on his arm. The Duchess of Carden inclined her head to Evander.
“Blackholm. It has been too long.” He clapped Evander on his shoulder.
“Carden. Your Grace.” Evander bowed. “May I present my wife, Mary, Duchess of Blackholm. Mary, the Duke and Duchess of Carden.”
“Please, call me Rose.” The Duchess of Carden smiled at Mary. “I have been looking forward to meeting you. Felix tells me your husband is among the most stubborn men in England, and I wanted to meet the woman brave enough to marry him.”
“Brave or reckless,” Mary said. “The jury is still out.”
Rose laughed. “I like her already.”
“How are the children?” Evander asked.
“Lizzie has discovered the word ‘no’ and uses it for everything,” Felix said. “Julian sleeps through the night, which we consider a miracle. Rose threatened to write a pamphlet on the subject.”
“I was not joking,” Rose said. “Every new mother in London would buy a copy.”
“Speaking of which.” Felix glanced between Evander and Mary. “We heard about your nephew. If there is anything we can do, you have only to ask.”
“Thank you, Carden. That is appreciated.”
After that, the Cardens moved on. Evander caught Mary watching Rose’s retreating back with an expression he could not quite read. Interest, perhaps. Or longing for the ease with which Rose had spoken about her children, her marriage, her life.
The evening continued. They circulated. Evander kept Mary on his arm and guided her through the currents of the ton with the same precision he applied to everything, and she matched him step for step, her composure steady, her conversation polished.
Then Lord Whitmore opened his mouth.
“Blackholm.” Whitmore was a stout man with an inflated sense of his own importance and a talent for asking the questions others had the good sense to keep to themselves.
He planted himself in their path with a glass of claret and a conspiratorial lean.
“Quite the situation you’ve found yourself in.
The whole business with your brother and the Langham girl.
Tell me, is it true the child arrived with—”
“Lord Whitmore.” Evander’s voice dropped to a register that made the men nearest them stop talking.
“My nephew is an infant. My brother and Lady Charlotte are members of my family. My wife is standing beside me.” He took one step forward.
Whitmore’s claret glass trembled. “If I hear speculation about any of them, there will be dire consequences. Are we clear?”
Whitmore’s face drained of color. “Perfectly clear, Your Grace. I meant no—”
“Good.” Evander turned his back on the man and guided Mary toward the far side of the ballroom.
The crowd parted for them.
Mary’s hand tightened on his arm. “You did not have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”
She looked up at him with deep gratitude.
A few minutes later, Evander noticed that Mary’s hand on his arm had grown tighter, her smile more fixed. Her gaze kept drifting toward the ballroom doors, and twice she turned at the sound of a voice that was not there.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. I am fine.”
“You are not fine. You have looked at the door four times in the last ten minutes.”
Mary pressed her lips together. “I have never left Tommy for this long. Not since the day he arrived. Mrs. Bridwell is capable, I know that, but he does not sleep well without someone beside him, and if he cries and I am not—”
“Dance with me.”
Mary blinked. “What?”
“Dance with me. The orchestra is playing, and you are spiraling, and the best remedy for both is a waltz.” He held out his hand. “Unless you would prefer to stand here and count the minutes until we can leave?”
Surprise crossed her face, then warmth, then a smile that was not polished or composed or designed for the ton. It was real, and it was for him, and it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs.
“I would like that,” she said.
Evander led her onto the floor.