Chapter 22
James arrived at seven.
He had not been invited at seven. He had been invited to accompany them to the Pemberton ball, which began at nine, and had apparently interpreted this as an invitation to arrive two hours early and make himself comfortable in the drawing room with William’s brandy.
“You look,” he said, settling back in his chair with the ease of a man entirely at home in a house that was not his, “like a man who has spent considerable time on his cravat.”
“What do you mean? I always spend time on my cravat.”
“You spend the appropriate amount of time on your cravat. Tonight, you have spent more than the appropriate amount.” He fixed William with the knowing look that William had been enduring for fifteen years and had never successfully deflected. “Where is she?”
“Getting ready.”
“How long has she been getting ready?”
“That is not information I have.”
“You’ve looked at the stairs three times since I arrived.”
“I am keeping an eye on the time.”
“The clock is there.” James pointed at the mantelpiece. “The stairs are there. You have been looking at the stairs.”
William picked up his brandy.
James looked at him for a moment. “William…”
“Don’t start.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to say something utterly ridiculous.”
“I was about to ask whether you had considered–”
“James.”
James lifted his glass in a gesture of temporary retreat and looked at the fire. “The Pembertons have invited most of the county,” he said, in a bored tone. “Lady Ashford will be there.”
“I know.”
“After last time–”
“I know.”
“You handled it well,” James praised. “That dinner. I heard about it from four separate people, which means by now the whole of London has heard about it, which was presumably the point.”
“It was not a strategy,” William said. “It was simply what happened.”
“Things that simply happen with you tend to have considerable effect.”
“I did not want her to stand there and take it.”
James nodded his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I imagine you didn’t.” He stood, set down his glass, and firmly clapped William once on the back. “I’ll wait by my carriage. Give you a moment.”
William looked at him.
James smiled. Not the practiced smile, but the real one, which appeared rarely and meant more for its rarity.
“Don’t do anything I would do or say anything I would say,” he said, then picked up his coat and was gone before William could respond.
The room fell quiet. The fire flickered. Downstairs, William could hear the carriage being brought around—the sound of hooves on gravel, a footman’s voice.
The house held the energy of an evening assembling itself, staff moving with the quiet efficiency of a household that knew what was expected and was delivering it.
William turned to look at the stairs. And stopped.
Cecily stood at the top of the stairs.
He had known the gown would be beautiful.
Deep blue silk, simply cut, the kind of simplicity that required perfection to carry and carried it.
Her hair was pinned up, with a few curls loose at her neck, and she wore the ring he had chosen in the jeweler’s shop in twenty-five minutes of pretending he wasn’t choosing it.
She was looking down at him with the composed expression she brought to rooms she was uncertain of.
He forgot to breathe.
Not figuratively. His chest simply stopped moving for one full second, the physical fact of her at the top of the stairs in the candlelight doing something to his capacity for basic function that he was not prepared for and could not immediately address.
He heard his own heartbeat.
He cleared his throat to recover. He was practiced at recovery. He schooled his features into something that gave nothing away and looked up at her with the crooked smile that had gotten him out of a great many difficult situations.
“You seem determined to distract half of London this evening,” he said as she descended.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and looked at him with the arched eyebrow she reserved for remarks that didn’t fool her.
“Half of London,” she repeated.
“At minimum.”
“And the other half?”
He offered his arm. “Will simply have to manage their disappointment.”
She took his arm. Her hand settled on his sleeve, a familiar cool light touch, and he was aware of it with the disproportionate clarity that had become standard where she was concerned.
“I was under the impression that you preferred distance,” she said as they moved toward the door.
“I prefer what is appropriate to the occasion.”
“And what is appropriate to this occasion?”
He glanced at her. The teasing glint in her eyes definitely tightened the knot in his chest, and he almost groaned.
“That remains to be seen,” he said instead.
Pemberton House blazed. Every window lit, carriages four deep along the street, the sound of the orchestra already audible from the entrance. A full string complement, which meant the Pembertons had spent properly on the evening, which meant everyone they had invited had come.
William had attended this ball for six consecutive years and knew its particular rhythms the way he knew most London social occasions—where the useful conversations happened, where the ones to avoid gathered, how the room shifted after midnight, when the supper had been taken and the wine had done its work.
He had known all of that.
What he had not previously known was how the room would receive Cecily. He discovered it within thirty seconds of their entrance.
The stillness moved through the nearest group.
It was not silence, the room was too large and too full for silence, but instead the shift of attention, the way eyes moved and voices dropped and recovered, the ripple of it outward from the door.
He had felt this his entire adult life in every room he entered, the awareness that preceded his name.
This was different. This was them watching her.
She felt it. He could feel her feel it—the slight adjustment in her posture, the lift of her chin, the decision made in real time to inhabit the entrance rather than endure it.
She looked at the room with the direct, clear gaze she brought to everything she intended to understand, and the room looked back. She did not look away first.
His chest swelled with pride, and he inadvertently drew her closer.
“Blackmoor.” Lord Pemberton materialized at his elbow, his wide face creased with genuine pleasure.
“Delighted. And this must be the new Duchess.” He turned to Cecily with the warm, uncomplicated welcome of a man who liked people and was not feigning the liking.
“Your Grace, we are absolutely charmed. My wife has been speaking of nothing else since the invitation was sent.”
“Lord Pemberton,” Cecily greeted warmly. “The house is magnificent.”
“Forty years of my wife’s determination,” he said happily. “I contributed the address, and she did the rest. Come, come, she’ll want to–”
Lady Pemberton appeared at that moment, having evidently been watching for them, and the introductions expanded.
Within five minutes, Cecily was conversing with their hostess with the easy interest of someone who was genuinely listening and not thinking about anything else.
William stood slightly to her left and watched every eye in the room find her and do a double-take.
“Well,” drawled a voice at his shoulder. It was James, with champagne and the expression of a man vindicated.
William pinned him with a look.
“I am simply standing here.”
“You are standing here, being insufferable.”
“I am standing here, watching your wife dismantle three months of malicious gossip in approximately eight minutes using nothing but conversation and good posture.” James sipped his champagne. “It is genuinely impressive.”
It was.
William watched Cecily say something to Lady Pemberton that made the older woman laugh with genuine delight, before Lady Pemberton took her hand. He saw the calculation in the eyes of every woman within range as the equation shifted in real time.
The Duchess of Blackmoor is someone Lady Pemberton is delighted by, which means—
He looked away and accepted champagne from a passing footman. While he found himself in conversation with Mr. Fenwick about the parliamentary session, he was constantly aware of where she was in the room.
He did not track her the way he tracked risks or variables. He tracked her the way one tracked a fire in a dark room—by the warmth of it, by the light of it, by the quality of the air around it.
He was not sure what to do with that metaphor.
He filed it away.
“Your Grace.” Lady Caldwell appeared at his side with the purposeful trajectory of a woman who had been working her way toward him. “What a lovely evening. And the Duchess—my goodness! Quite transformed from that awful business in the papers. I, of course, knew that it was entirely overblown–”
“You did,” William agreed pleasantly.
“–and she is so charming, isn’t she? So entirely–”
“Yes,” William said.
Lady Caldwell smiled uncertainly at being agreed with before she had finished her sentence, then moved on.
Lady Ashford found him at the edge of the dining room. She was better than he had expected—poised, calibrated, the particular manner of a woman who had decided the way forward was grace and had committed to it entirely.
“Your Grace,” she greeted. “The Duchess looks beautiful.”
“She does,” William agreed.
A pause, in which Lady Ashford appeared to weigh several possible next sentences.
“I behaved badly at dinner,” she said finally. “I wished to say so directly.”
He looked at her. She held the look without flinching, which he respected.
“Thank you. She is worth knowing, Lady Ashford. I think you would find yourself pleasantly surprised.”
“She is rather remarkable.” A pause, small and deliberate. “It would be a great shame,” she added, “if such a marriage were over before it had truly begun.” Then she inclined her head and moved on.
William stood where he was, wondering where that had come from.