Chapter 3 #2
“Bully for me then. Come on,” he urged. “Am I so very terrible that you wish to get away from me so quickly?”
“You’re not terrible,” she relented, “but…”
“But what?” he prompted.
She narrowed her eyes. “I suppose…”
“Yes?” he urged temptingly.
“I did say I might help you.”
“So you did,” he said, waggling his dark brows at her. “Very badly done of you to leave me alone back there. Made me feel most abandoned.”
She let out a laugh that was almost a groan. How could she not? “Oh, dear. Do you have to be so bloody likable?”
“I can’t help it,” he said, as if it were a plague he couldn’t escape. “It’s who I am.”
“Yes, but likable people aren’t supposed to believe that the world is hopeless.”
“Alas,” he said with a shrug, “it is just how I understand the world.”
“So I can see,” she mused before she narrowed her eyes. Then she finally admitted, “You’re going to fit in.”
“Am I?” he asked, clearly astonished. “Where? I have yet to feel as if I fit in.”
“Well, you will soon. Come along,” she instructed.
And then, much to her own amazement, she reached back and extended her hand. “Here, let me put my hand atop yours.”
“Whatever my lady commands,” he said.
“Well said,” she said as she put her gloved hand atop his broad one. “Lead me in.”
“Back in there?” he blurted. “I have no desire to go back in there.”
“Yes, you do,” she said tartly, turning to him. “If you want to change the world, you absolutely want to go back in there. There are people in there who can help you.”
“There are people in there I’d like to throttle,” he replied dryly.
“Yes, so would I,” she admitted, her lips twitching. “That’s why I generally don’t spend time with them, but the people that I help are not in there.”
He hesitated. “You help people? People other than me?”
“I’m glad to know that you’re finally going to get around to asking some more questions about me,” she said.
He had the good humor to look abashed before he cleared his throat. “Forgive me.”
“It’s all right. You are overborne. The ton could do that to anyone.”
“My thanks. But who exactly is in there that I should meet?”
“My family is in there. And my family are a different story indeed.”
“The Briarwoods,” he said.
“Exactly,” she replied.
“They’re famous,” he said.
She let out a bellow of a laugh. “You shall soon find out.”
“That sounds like a threat,” he said.
“Perhaps it is,” she teased, leaning towards him. “And you should heed it and run now.”
“Run,” he echoed. “Oh no, straight into the lion’s den, me.”
“More fool you then.”
“That’s a jolly life, being a fool,” he said. “You’re never afraid.”
She let out another sigh. “You do say the oddest things.”
“There it is, that gale,” he said. “You could cause a ship to sail from England to New York in a fortnight with those sighs.”
Then without another comment, he led her into the ballroom.
The thick crowd was full of the most important people in all of England.
The entire crowd, even the dancers, were decked in silks of every hue embroidered with real silver and gold.
Gems shone like the firmament, sewn into clothes, positioned in hair, and dripping from ears, wrists, and necks. Feathers and bows bobbed.
As they entered the ballroom, pince-nez glasses gleamed as they were lifted to eyes to get a better look at them.
It struck her then just how famous he was. Or infamous. A bit like the Briarwoods. He was a subject of much gossip, and so, of course, the ton would all notice who he was with!
She had not thought of this.
And, honestly, she had no idea doing what she was doing, but she felt compelled to help him and couldn’t abandon him now. Running would only make it worse.
But one of the Briarwood spinsters being on the duke’s arm would no doubt be the subject of every conversation over tea and toast in the morning. She never should have done this, but…
She liked him. He was interesting and…he was alone. Everyone had heard about the Duke of Roseford.
Still, there was no denying what had been said about him, and as she strode through the room on his arm, all eyes upon them, it was impossible to ignore the bits and pieces she had heard drifting to the front of her mind.
He was a wild fellow from the Americas, but not even really from the Americas.
There was gossip about how his father had left England, left his grandfather brokenhearted, and never returned.
He had visited once when he was a boy, brought by a mother who could not help her husband who was tossed on a sea of pain, but then he’d never been seen again. Until now.
Yes, he needed help.
He needed people who might understand him, and really the only people who fit that description were the Briarwoods.
She would pawn him off on her family, and then she would retreat from him and not worry about him another day, because she’d seen the look in his eye, and, of course, there had been that kiss.
And she would have to disabuse him of the notion very quickly that she would have anything to do with him beyond a bit of fun. She liked a bit of fun, but she couldn’t risk having him getting ideas. Whether he was aware of them or not, she’d seen the ideas spinning in his head.
He needed a duchess, and quite frankly, she understood why most of the young ladies of the ton wouldn’t suit him. But she certainly was not going to suit either, and she was going to have to squash any inkling of that in him quickly because…she couldn’t be anyone’s duchess.
She couldn’t be anyone’s wife.
She had far too much to do, and she loved being unwed. And how could she ever abandon her sister, Emilia?
“You look most perplexed,” he said. “Is it the stares? I find if I look over their heads, it lessens the oddity.”
“Do I look perplexed?” she asked, annoyed that he’d identified her conflicted mind.
“Yes, you look as if there are about a thousand thoughts running around in your head, and they are all at war with each other.”
Wondering how bloody long it could take to cross a ballroom, she cleared her throat and whispered, “Well, if you must know, I’m planning how to tell you that I cannot get married.”
“Are you already married?” he asked.
“We’ve already established that I’m a spinster,” she said.
“Then why can’t you get married?” he asked, clearly curious. “Is there something wrong with you? Are you mad? Is there something preventing it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Wait, no. I am not mad. There is something else preventing it.”
“What?” he asked.
“Myself.”
He let out a long sigh.
“Ah,” she teased. “It is now your turn to be a gale.”
“You are a most fascinating young woman, but you are presupposing a great deal,” he drawled. “Why would you think that I’m going to ask you to marry me?”
She smiled at him. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Good God, you’re interesting.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “You’re not so very bad yourself. Now, there they are.”
She gestured across the room to where her family stood en masse, all looking tremendously amused by her entrance.
She was likely going to be ribbed mercilessly for this. She never caused a scene at a ball. Now, she was causing a scene that would be the talk of the ton for weeks.
“Who the bloody hell are they?”
“They’re my family,” she declared proudly. “And you’re about to be taken in.”
“Do I want to be taken in?”
She grinned. “Oh, yes, you most definitely do.”